1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a nanowire bundle array, a membrane including the same, a method of manufacturing the membrane, and a steam generator using the membrane, and more particularly to a nanowire bundle array for efficiently generating steam by converting light from a broad solar spectrum into heat, a membrane including the same, a method of manufacturing the membrane, and a steam generator using the membrane.
2. Description of the Related Art
Solar energy collected to produce steam can be used in many fields including solar energy conversion devices for water purification or sterilization, power plants, and water desalination plants.
By increasing the efficiency of steam generation from sunlight, the performances of systems such as the aforementioned water purification devices, solar power plants, and water desalination plants can be generally increased. As elements that can be considered to efficiently generate steam using sunlight, there are sufficient absorption of solar spectrum, insulation against heat generated by heating water, efficient escape of generated steam bubbles, etc.
Meanwhile, it has been known that, upon localized surface plasmon resonance heating, lights of metal nanoshells or nanoparticles are not reflected and the lights are trapped, whereby heating is carried out.
Conventionally, the geometrical structures of surface plasmons have been suitably designed to increase the efficiency of resonance light absorption. However, one problem of such a surface plasmon resonance heating method is that an absorption band is narrow due to resonance characteristics of surface plasmons.